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Federal Court Rules Against Redskins In Legal Battle With Native Americans

A Washington Redskins football helmet lies on the field during NFL football minicamp.

A Washington Redskins football helmet lies on the field during NFL football minicamp. Nick Wass/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Nick Wass/AP

A federal court has ruled against Washington, D.C.’s, professional football team in a legal battle with Native Americans over the team’s name.

United States District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee ruled that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office should cancel the team’s trademark of the Redskins name because the name “may disparage” Native Americans.

This order does not go into effect until the team has exhausted its appeals. The next step for the team would be the United States Supreme Court.

But as Judge Lee points out, even if the judicial system ultimately sides with the group of Native Americans fighting this in court, the team could still continue to use its name. The decision would mean that the team would no longer be protected by federal trademark protections, which means the team would have a harder time stopping independent sellers from using its logo on jerseys, for example.

As The Washington Post reports, the team has argued that canceling its trademark “would taint its brand and remove legal benefits that would protect against copycat entrepreneurs.”

In Lee’s opinion for the U.S. Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, he ruled against the team and agreed with a previous ruling from the federal Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.

Lee writes:

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U.S. Women's Soccer Team Kicks Off Victory Tour In L.A.

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Fans gathered in downtown Los Angeles Tuesday to cheer the U.S. women’s national soccer team. They’ve returned home after defeating Japan on Sunday to win the World Cup.

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Now to a victory tour that kicked off today in Los Angeles. The U.S. women’s soccer team is back from Canada, gold trophy in hand, after dominating Japan in the World Cup final on Sunday. NPR’s Nathan Rott took in the scene at the LA rally.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Welcome, to the U.S. Women’s National Team World Cup champions.

(APPLAUSE)

NATHAN ROTT, BYLINE: Waving flags, red, white and blue face paint, Taylor Swift songs, USA chants and thousands of soccer jersey-wearing fans, some who had arrived as early as 7 in the morning to get a front row spot. And loud, loud cheers as each of the 23 women on the U.S. team were introduced to the gathered, including a hometown hero, Alex Morgan.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Any Alex Morgan fans?

(APPLAUSE)

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: She’s a SoCal girl, and we want to bring her up here right now.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Go Alex. We love you Alex.

ROTT: Fifteen-year-old Alexia Maciel was one of the many screaming fans.

ALEXIA MACIEL: She’s my favorite player and everything, and I just want to be like her when I grow up.

ROTT: You want to be just like Alex Morgan?

ALEXIA: Yeah.

ROTT: Maciel plays soccer too. She’s a forward.

ALEXIA: Same as Alex Morgan.

ROTT: Are you number 13 too?

ALEXIA: Yes. I’m lucky. I got number 13 this year. I was like, what the heck?

ROTT: Away from the crowd and farther from the screaming, a group of younger soccer players dressed in their West Coast football club uniforms are walking with their moms. Eight-year-old Maddie Heineki is their unofficial spokeswoman.

MADDIE HEINEKI: It’s just cool to have your own country win. You just have all that spirit and it inspires you.

ROTT: Do you want to be a professional soccer player someday?

MADDIE: Yeah, I want to make it to the World Cup.

ROTT: Do you think you could score three goals in a game?

MADDIE: Probably.

ROTT: You’re not lacking for confidence.

MADDIE: I don’t know.

ROTT: Kelley de la Fuente from Long Beach brought her daughter Giada de la Fuente to the rally to introduce her to some potential role models. She says that the assembled crowd and the fact that the final was the most-watched soccer game in U.S. history is inspiring.

KELLEY DE LA FUENTE: I think it’s amazing. I think – go girls. Yeah. It’s not women’s soccer, it’s soccer.

ROTT: It is soccer. And as the women’s team is happy to remind everyone, they are World Cup champions.

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Chanting) I believe that we – I believe that we just won. I believe that we just won.

ROTT: Nathan Rott, NPR News, Los Angeles.

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Chanting) I believe that we – I believe that we just won. I believe that we just won.

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Mayweather Is Stripped Of WBO Belt He Won From Pacquiao

Floyd Mayweather Jr. missed a deadline to decide which title belt he wants to keep, says the World Boxing Organization.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. missed a deadline to decide which title belt he wants to keep, says the World Boxing Organization. Al Bello/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Al Bello/Getty Images

Saying that Floyd Mayweather missed a deadline to pay a fee related to his May 2 win over Manny Pacquiao, the World Boxing Organization has stripped Floyd of the welterweight title he won in that fight.

Mayweather “let come and go the 4:30 p.m. ET Friday deadline by which he had to pay a $200,000 sanctioning fee from the May 2 fight (for which he earned more than $220 million),” reports ESPN’s Dan Rafael, who also notes that the WBO is also trying to enforce its rules against boxers holding titles in different weight classes.

Representatives for Mayweather, who remains undefeated in his pro boxing career, tell ESPN that they’re weighing their options.

The WBO title will now go to Timothy Bradley Jr., who had been named the interim title holder after he won a June 27 fight for the welterweight belt.

The status of that June bout was thrown into uncertainty after Mayweather seemed to change his mind about vacating his titles — something he pledged to do after defeating Pacquiao.

“Give other fighters a chance,” Mayweather said back in May. “I’m not greedy. I’m a world champion in two different weight classes. It’s time to let other fighters fight for the belt.”

ESPN’s Rafael says that Mayweather, 38, “plans to next fight Sept. 12 — the opponent has not been announced — to complete his six-fight contract with Showtime/CBS. After that, the 38-year-old has said, he plans to retire.”

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Combat sports regulation bill to get a hearing

A bill that would regulate kickboxing and other combat sports in Wisconsin will receive a hearing, according to the Assembly committee chairman. State Rep. Rob Swearingen (R-Rhinelander), chairman of the Assembly Committee on State Affairs…


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Soccer Fan Displays Loretta Lynch Cutout At U.S. Women's World Cup Final

1:42

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For Nik Dahl, fan of the U.S. Women’s soccer team, Attorney General Loretta Lynch saved the sport of soccer by exposing corrupt FIFA leaders. To show his appreciation, he brought her to the Women’s World Cup Final — well, a 3-foot cutout of her face that is.

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Most people watching the World Cup last night would say Carli Lloyd was the most valuable player. The Olympic gold medalist scored three goals in the first 16 minutes of the match.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR: Quick shot – goal

(APPLAUSE)

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

The fans were going wild in Vancouver, to say the least, cheering for Lloyd and her teammates, Abby Wambach and Alex Morgan.

NIK DAHL: Our section had a lot of cut cutouts of Abby and Alex and Carli.

SIEGEL: But fan Nik Dahl chose to celebrate a different woman.

DAHL: My head was Attorney General Loretto Lynch.

MCEVERS: That’s right. He held a huge cardboard cutout of the face of the new U.S. attorney general.

DAHL: It’s about 3 feet tall, and it’s a lot of hair because Loretta has a lot of hair (laughter). But her face is smiling, and she looks beautiful.

SIEGEL: Dahl says he wanted to show his appreciation for the steps Lynch has taken to keep soccer honest, as in the corruption charges she unveiled against soccer’s governing body in May.

DAHL: I hope that she can know that we are thankful, as fans, for what she did. And it’s personally affecting to a lot of us. It’s a very local thing to us, and it’s nice to know that someone’s trying to make a difference there.

MCEVERS: And while some fans needed a little explanation about the face he was holding, Dahl says most reacted well.

DAHL: This cutout was a rock star. Everyone wanted a picture with it. I had to pose for many, many pictures. It was a lot of fun, and it brought a smile to a lot of people’s faces.

SIEGEL: Nik Dahl points out that neither the U.S. men nor women have lost a game since those charges were made on May 27.

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NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

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U.S. Women Shatter TV Ratings Record For Soccer With World Cup Win

Sunday's FIFA Women's World Cup final drew record U.S. TV ratings that are similar to the decisive Game 6 of last month's NBA Finals. Here, Carli Lloyd, No. 10, celebrates the second U.S. goal with teammates.

Sunday’s FIFA Women’s World Cup final drew record U.S. TV ratings that are similar to the decisive Game 6 of last month’s NBA Finals. Here, Carli Lloyd, No. 10, celebrates the second U.S. goal with teammates. Wang Lili/Xinhua /Landov hide caption

itoggle caption Wang Lili/Xinhua /Landov

The U.S. women’s national team is basking in the glow of the new FIFA World Cup trophy they claimed with an emphatic 5-2 win over Japan on Sunday. Led by Carli Lloyd’s three first-half goals, the win touched off celebrations and drew a huge TV audience, according to Fox.

“It is the highest metered market rating ever for a soccer game in the U.S. on a single network,” the company says.

Update at 12 noon ET: More Than 20 Million Viewers

While some 17 million American viewers tuned in to the 7 p.m. ET start of Sunday’s game, that number quickly grew to 21.86 million an hour later — and reached 22.86 million at 8:30 p.m. ET, according to preliminary data from industry website TV Media Insights.

Those figures are comparable to the 2014 World Series’ Game 7, which attracted 23.5 million viewers — far more than any other game of the 2014 series.

Our original post continues:

Hosted by Canada, the tournament has brought a succession of ratings wins for Fox, which aired games on its main channel as well as Fox Sports 1. Along the way, the women’s game has drawn compliments for lacking the elaborate (and action-slowing) histrionics elite men display as they attempt to draw referees’ calls. It’s also been defended by comedian Amy Poehler, who urged Americans to support the U.S. team.

Sunday night’s game shattered viewing records for soccer in the U.S. — played by men or women — according to preliminary numbers Fox released Monday morning.

The final drew “a prodigious 15.2/27 metered market household rating/share” from 7-9 p.m. ET, Fox says, citing data from the Nielsen ratings service. The network adds that the audience “peaked at 18.3/31 from 8:45-9:00 p.m. ET,” as more Americans tuned in to watch the celebrations in Vancouver.

As a comparison, consider that the Golden State Warriors’ recent title-clinching Game 6 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals earned a 15.9 overnight rating. That figure was hailed as a Game 6 record for ABC in a Finals series that drew the highest average numbers since the Michael Jordan era.

Compared to earlier soccer benchmarks, Fox says Sunday night’s game eclipsed “the previous mark set for the Women’s World Cup final between the USA and China in 1999 on ABC (13.3 mm rating).”

The figures also blew past the 8.6 mm rating earned by the 2011 Women’s World Cup final between the U.S. and Japan; that game was broadcast on ESPN.

More complete national data for Sunday night’s game will emerge later Monday; for now, Fox says the top five local markets were:

1. Kansas City (20.6/35)
2. St. Louis (20.5/33)
3. San Diego (19.5/41)
4. Denver (19.4/36)
5. Austin (19.1/37)

TV Media Insights reports that “Fox, overall, beat the Big 3 nets combined by 52 percent in the overnights,” while also noting that “results for any live sporting event are approximate.”

Fox Sports 1 will air an hourlong special at 1 p.m. ET Monday, when the 23-player national team and its coach, Jill Ellis, will unveil their new jerseys featuring three stars (denoting three World Cup titles).

Despite the excitement around this team and its new title, sports pundits noted that the prize payout for the women’s tournament is nowhere near the level of the men’s World Cup. The women’s championship team won $2 million — a fraction of what the men’s winners get.

FIFA will pay @USsoccer_wnt $2M for World Cup win. As a comparison, men’s teams ELIMINATED in GROUP PLAY receive $8M. (per BBC & Reuters)

— Randy Scott (@RandyScottESPN) July 6, 2015

For perspective: After Germany won the men’s World Cup last summer, the team was awarded $35 million — and each player also earned a bonus of more than $400,000 from their national sporting association, according to ESPN FC.

Shortly after Sunday’s resounding victory, President Obama tweeted his congratulations along with an invitation for the team to come visit.

What a win for Team USA! Great game @CarliLloyd! Your country is so proud of all of you. Come visit the White House with the World Cup soon.

— President Obama (@POTUS) July 6, 2015

Lloyd responded, “Thank you Mr. President! See you very soon at the White House!!”

Lloyd won the Golden Ball as the best player of the tournament; her teammate Hope Solo was named the best goalkeeper. And that gave U.S. Soccer an idea for the Treasury’s plans to feature a woman on America’s paper currency.

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